


The Institute

by Adele015



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 05:32:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adele015/pseuds/Adele015
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doctor gets accidentally transported off of the tardis, and ends up in a secret scientific research facility. Where the scientists are being held against their will, and forced to make weapons for a criminal mastermind. But will he, and newfound friend Sophia, be able to escape The Institute?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The room was dull. Dull, grey and cold. No natural light penetrated the thick, metallic walls, and no natural air flowed through the air vents. It was artificial, all of it artificial. Pure white light streamed out of the ceiling tiles, making the room harshly bright. The air was crisp, and had a sharp coldness drifting through it.

There was an emptiness about the place. Despite the humming of high-tech machinery and the bubbling of strange fluids, despite the gadgets and scientific equipment and futuristic objects that filled the space almost entirely, there was no atmosphere. The spark of human interaction was not there, there were no hushed conversations or loud murmuring. It was just lonely.

A solitary woman paced through the room, amongst the ordered-chaos that she had accumulated over the past few months. The thin fabric of her tights matched with the simplicity of tight skirt she wore, both of which where an un-imaginative shade of charcoal-grey. The starchy navy-blue shirt she wore hugged her body tightly, the buttons of which were done up precariously lowly for an outfit of such obvious formality. A long, still white lab-coat swished around her as she walked, sitting snugly on her arms and upper body, and draping down to just above her knees. Her deep red converse off-setted the entire ensemble, adding a touch of immaturity, of youth to the otherwise grown up and formal attire.

A large vial of simmering purple liquid, the viscosity of glue, suddenly died down. Fumes of a putrid violet shade licked at the edges of the glass, before simply dissolving into the small amount of air trapped above the liquid. A slow tapping sound echoed around the room as she strode towards the table upon which the vial was held. She furrowed her brow, and held to vial up to her face, silently studying its contents.

A large thud penetrated the quiet, causing her to jump, and drop the vile into the floor.

"Damn it!" She grumbled. The noise had seemed to come from the storage cupboard, in the corner of the room. That's strange, she thought. Cautiously, she made her way across the room, and pressed her ear against the door. The cupboard was still making an extraordinary amount of noise, as through something was rattling around inside of it. 

Slowly, she turned the handle of the cupboard, and peered inside. Just as something from inside, came tumbling out.

"Ahh!!" She shouted, as a person fell out of the cupboard, and landed on top of her. The man who had fallen out of the cupboard was very gangly. His tall, slender frame was covered in bright blue suit. A red tie was hanging down from his neck, matching with the bright red converse he wore in his feet, the same as hers. His hair was unruly, gelled directly upwards. He certainly did not look like a scientist.

"Oh, umm, sorry." He began to babble, pulling himself and the young woman up from the floor. "I must have taken a wrong turning somewhere. I'll just be going now...." He strode back into the cupboard, and began scanning the walls of it with what looked like a pen with a glowing blue light on the end, but she knew it to be a sonic device.

".....you won't get out of there." She said, looking rather confusedly at the surprise arrival.  
"I have scanned it with every device possible, and it's impenetrable. The walls are made of six feet of concrete."

"Oh. Well there must be another way out. A back exit, or a front door...." He made his way towards the front door of the room, and the woman panicked.

"No! What do you think you're doing?! You're going to get yourself killed! There's no way out of here!" She exclaimed, pulling the man away from the door. He turned, and studied the room.

"But this is a laboratory! Why are you trapped in a laboratory?" He glanced around the room. There wasn't a single window in the entire room, and in each corner if the ceiling a security camera was mounted.

"This isn't a laboratory. It's a labour camp." She said, watching the horrified look on his face. "....do you really not know where you are?" She asked. He shook his head. She sighed. She hated teaching the new ones about the place, it was so tedious.

"This is The Institute. But I suppose the big letters on the wall kind of tell you that." She nodded towards the large mural on the wall. "Some criminal mastermind keeps stealing scientists, the best ones around the world, and put them here. We're never aloud to leave. The guards would make that impossible anyway. We have to do research for them. Weapons and warfare type stuff." She frowned slightly. He looked at her in horror.

"That's....horrible!" He looked truly disgusted. "....how long have you been here?" 

"Five years." She said, a sad glint in her eye. "I was one of the first. Which I suppose is quite flattering, obviously I'm a pretty good scientist." She grinned. Her spirits were rather hight for someone who'd been kidnapped for five years, and he respected that.

"But haven't you tried to escape?" The thought of staying stuck in here for five years making him feel a little sick.

She sighed. "I have, unsuccessfully. But not recently. The last person to attempt it got tortured and killed. And they made us watch...." She shuddered at the thought. "No one has tried to escape since. Everyone else is too terrified of what will happen to them. I'm the only one who has attempted to get any kind of freedom since then." She looked directly into one of the security cameras. "They only see what I want them to see. So in here, I can do what I like." She smirked. It had been two years, and they still hadn't noticed that what the cameras were filming was fake.

"No! You've wired a chameleon circuit into the processor of the cameras! And ghats a handmade chameleon circuit!! Ohhh that's....that's genius!" She grinned.

"Thank you." She said, before tending to a vile of a putrid yellow gas, that had started to spark. "So what's your science?" She asked, putting on goggles and rubber gloves, before mixing that vile with another one.

"Sorry?" He asked, transfixed with the business of all of the bubbling and fizzing voles in front of him.

"We'll you're at the institute. You must be some kind of scientist, so what field are you?" She asked, hoping that they were the same. She hated working on her own.

"Oh....umm....I'm not a scientist." She threw him a very confused look.

"But you have got be! I mean, no one gets taken here unless they're a scientist!" 

"I was just passing by. In my.....vehicle, and I woke up in that cupboard. Do you think you could invest in some kind of carpeting in there, that metal floor isn't very comfy." He gave her a cheeky grin, that she couldn't help but smile at. He was cute....

"Oh...." She said, pondering what exactly he meant. "....was it a spaceship, by any chance?" He didn't reply, and instead just looked stunned. Which answered her question for her.

"There's no need to look surprised. The amount of advanced technology in here was bound to affect some interstellar transport. Professor Stokes in engineering has been experimenting with alien technology. I told him this would happen, but he didn't listen to me." She shook her head at the professors stupidity. He'd managed to cause someone else to be trapped down here as well. And she was well aware of the existence of spaceships and aliens. She, unlike the rest of the scientists in the facility, and managed to get access to the Internet. And in the outside world, there had been some very strange things happening indeed.

"I must say, you're very handsome for an alien." She said, throwing him a wink. He tried not to blush.

"Well you're not bad for a human." He grinned at her, and she turned bright red, which caused him to chuckle. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name." She said, adjusting a Bunsen burner flame underneath a beaker full of a strange green solid.

"The doctor." He said, smiling as she raised an eyebrow at him

"Is that an alien thing, or are you just pretentious?" She grinned at him. "Doctor Sophia Kensington. It's a pleasure to meet you... Doctor."


	2. Chapter 2

"So what do you do around here? I'm guessing there's no sneaking off to the cinema." The Doctor was perched on the end of the Lab bench, swinging his legs in the air, and watching with interest as Sophia busied around the room. With a soft chuckle, she looked up from a clipboard and gave the man a smile.

"Well I'm a Pharmacologist, so they normally have me making drugs and poisons. They're now requesting a neurotoxin. But it's not going too well, you know what it's like working when kidnapped." She said with a grin. Her spirits seemed awfully high for someone being held against their will. "Between you and me, I've barely even started. Sod their neurotoxin I say." She whispered, earning an approving smile from the Doctor.

"Is that it? What do you do for fun?" 

"Oh, I do a bit of inventing." She said, a twinkle in her eye at the mention of her hobby. "Though the CCTV camera adjustment probably told you that. Here-" she said, pulling something out of her bun, and letting her soft mousey-brown hair hang loose. She handed the doctor what looked like a pen, with the smile of a artist very proud of their work. "It's my prize invention."

"Now that is beautiful." He murmured, pulling on a pair of thick rimmed glasses and peering at the pen. "A sonic pen! You made this all by yourself, imprisoned in a laboratory? Dr Kensington, you're a genius!" He exclaimed excitedly. 

"I know." She said smugly. "Oh, let me show you something else!" She bounded across the room, and dug something out from under a pile of paper. It was the size of a calculator, and appeared to have been out together out of random bits and bobs she'd found lying about. Shining the sonic pen over it, the piece of metal lit up, turning into what seemed like a screen, a small keyboard popping out from underneath it. "Now this is just a prototype-"

The Doctor snatched the device out of her hand, with the grin of a child at Christmas.

"Oh I mean what I said, you really are a genius! It's a computer made out of scraps of metal and bits of string!"

"More or less." She said with a smile, before taking the device back off of him. "Wanna see me hack into the Insitute's mainframe?" She asked mischievously. With the tap of several keys, the black screen changed into a white one, the Institute logo in the centre; Et ipsa scientia potestas est written in a circle around a fist, meaning Knowledge is Power. The logo suddenly faded, and a new screen appeared, this one seemed to be a home page of sorts.

"Pharmacologist, Inventor and Computer Hacker extraordinaire? Are you trying to make me feel useless?" The doctor smiled, his eyes full of admiration. This woman was brilliant. 

"I'll just add you into the 'employee' database." She muttered, hurriedly typing away. "Does this sound alright?" She asked, showing him a template of his ID. It read; Doctor John Smith, D.O.B: 1978, Pharmacologist, Room 106. 

"Where's room 106?" He asked, folding up his glasses and putting them back in his jacket pocket.

"Here, you don't mind bunking with me, do you? I don't snore, I promise." She said with a grin. "And it means I can keep you out of imminent trouble." She said with a wink.

"Me, trouble? I don't know what you mean!" He protested innocently, causing her to laugh. 

"You're a trouble maker, I can see it in your eyes. But don't worry, I am too." She flashed him a grin, before disappearing into the cupboard he'd arrived in, and pulling out a lab coat.

"Here, you'd better wear this." She said, passing him the coat. Once he'd pulled it on, she straightened the collar, brushed out the creases and took a step back. She chewed her lip thoughtfully, before taking his glasses out of his pocket, and placing them back on his nose. Rummaging around in her own lab coat's pocket, she pulled out what looked like a blank ID card, and pinned it to his coat. She went to smooth down his hair, but when he scowled at her, she pulled her hand away. Mental note; never touch the hair.

"There. I think you can pull of the scientist look now. You definitely have the right shoes." She said with a grin, gesturing to their matching red converse. "Now don't go wondering off. Don't aggravate the guards. Just do everything I do, okay?" She raised an eyebrow warningly. "Oh, before I forget, psychic paper." She said, tapping on the blank ID card. "Although I think you already knew that." 

 

*********

 

Sophia looked at her watch for what felt like hours to the doctor. He went to ask her what she was doing, when she suddenly looked up, and stepped towards the front door of the room. As if on queue, a siren started wailing away, and the doors hissed and slid open instantaneously. 

"Stay behind me." She murmured, grabbing hold of the Doctor's hand, and stepping out of the door. The corridor they stepped out into seemed to be never ending. Whichever way he looked, a vast expanse of cold metallic walls stretched on forever, and what seemed like a hundred doors were open at even intervals. Scientists, all wearing white lab coats, stepped out of every room, and into a single file line in the centre of the corridor. They looked like a trail of white ants, as the guards forced them to march. 

The guards themselves stood backs against the wall, arms folded, watching the scientists walk past. They were entirely weapon-less, dressed in flimsy black body armour. They didn't seem like much a threat, however by the way the people were acting, he knew they were.

"Don't stare." Sophia hissed, joining the line and dragging the doctor in beside her. "Don't talk. Just walk behind me. Same speed." Her voice was edged with so much fear, that the Doctor felt compelled to do what she said. 

 

All of a sudden, a woman a little way in front of them stumbled and fell, causing the line behind her to stop. Two guards appeared instantly beside her, glaring down at her. She began crying and screaming, pleading and begging for forgiveness, but the men picked her roughly up off of the ground. 

Sophia felt the Doctor shift beside her, his hand getting ready to let go of hers and run over go help the woman. However instead if letting him, she tightened her grip on his hand, so much so that it began to hurt,

"Don't. It won't help." As she hissed this, the guards and the crying woman vanished, and the line began moving again. The doctor sniffed the air, recognising the familiar coppery smell of a transmit beam. 

Eventually, the corridor they trudged down opened up into a large, octagonal room. It had no doors, and was again made of cold metal. Rows upon rows of benches filled the room, and in front of each seat sat a bowl of grey mush, and a glass of clear liquid.

The doctor looked down at the food in distaste. Just from it's appearance he knew it would be bland and tasteless. Why couldn't they just serve chips? Everyone loves chips! He thought, swallowing a spoonful of the thick stuff. 

Sophia looked up from her empty bowl, to see the Doctor staring coldly at her. The guards had stayed in the corridor, leaving the scientists to have somewhat private conversations. However the chatter that filled the room was still hushed, as they were still incredibly terrified. The Doctor heard the occasional sob from somewhere in the room, and it broke his two hearts. 

He refused to talk to Sophia for the entire meal, fuming that she'd stopped him from helping that poor woman. 

However instead of acknowledging the Doctor's anger, she ignored him, and ate her meal in silence.

Once back in the laboratory, the Doctor continued to stare icily at Sophia, causing her to finally break.

"Don't look at me like that." She snapped. "You don't know what the guards are capable of! Once they have you in their sights, that's it. There's no saving you from their punishments." There was still an unnerving darkness in the Doctor's eyes, as though he still resented her for leaving that woman to be taken. "Oh what do you know?! I've been here for five bloody years! Don't you think it breaks my heart every time someone is taken? Don't you think I'd stop it if I could?! You just have to hope that they survive the punishment." 

The doctor saw such utter sadness in her eyes, such helplessness as to what was happening at the Institute, that he felt no longer able to stay mad with her. She felt the same as him, after all. She hated the place too. More so, even. But she knew how to survive in the place, so he had to trust her. 

"This place is disgusting. Those guards are just....eugh! But we have to think of the bigger picture Doctor. Until we think of a plan to free everyone, we have to just let it happen.

"We'd better get thinking then."


End file.
